The control and direction of professional education

Abstract

The author begins by advancing several hypotheses regarding forces transforming schools of library and information science (LIS) into schools of information (SI). After applying the “social worlds” concepts of Anselm Strauss to the process, he addresses the amalgam of idealistic and self‐serving motivations underlying faculty advocacy of the “information” model for LIS education. Among these motivations is a rational response to university norms for research. Less positively, the author discerns a now‐stereotypical striving by “nonlibrary” faculty in professional schools to refashion programs to reflect their “home” disciplines. This latter strategy seeks to retain the stability in enrollment and restriction in competition for supplying certain library markets that results from American Library Association accreditation. It is stressed that the price for such “information” transformation is a further distancing of full‐time faculty from the worlds of practice. The author also addresses the errors flowing from the misapplication of ecological theory to LIS professional education. As an alternative, he advocates an intensified interest in—as well as support of—all aspects of LIS education by the many worlds of LIS practice. He further argues that a cultural model of LIS better positions both the “library” and “information” professions for a new millennium.

Connections between research and practice in the information literacy narrative: A mapping of the literature and some propositions

“…Haddow and Klobas, 2004;McKechnie et al, 2008) but there are also other, related examples of similar flavour, for example 'the void' (e.g. Crowley, 1999), and 'the gulf' (e.g. Shenton, 2010).…”

History of information science

“…A collective biography of the post‐World War II generation will likely reinforce the conclusions that the demands and enticements of Cold War science, especially in applied and mission‐oriented programs (such as missile and space efforts), as well as intelligence programs, shifted indexing, cataloging, and retrieval into the hands of subject specialists and engineers whose focus was the immediate solution of problems for a specialized audience. They could welcome deviations from established library procedures but few of them, it seems, were able to find ways to live comfortably in the social/professional worlds of either theoretical information science or library‐oriented programs as they responded to new technological opportunities (Cragin, 2004; Crowley, 1999). A study of the INTREX project at MIT showed that attempts at blending computer scientists, librarians, subject specialists, and self‐described information scientists into a long‐term program faced considerable hurdles (Burke, 1996).…”

“…Allied with both of these points is the question of the disproportionate influence of engineers and applied scientists in the design and management of early online systems and a similar profile for the Internet—although information science had matured by the time of the Web (Berners‐Lee & Fischetti, 1999; Bourne & Hahn, 2003). As has been discussed, there is a parallel between the struggle in the 1950s–1970s to create a profession that could determine itself and the turmoil created by shifts and declines in academic funding in conjunction with what appears to be an increasing importance of the for‐profit sector in reshaping curricula and professional attitudes (Crowley, 1999; Ørom, 2000).…”